A Library of Little Black Books
by CretianStar
Summary: One shots all around what the characters write in their little black books.
1. Molly

A/N: So this is a collection of short stories, all surrounding a variety of a little black book (clue's in the title). A whole range of one shots!

* * *

 **Molly's Little Black Book.**

Meena had given it to her a Christmas present when they'd first started university. Her bestie had joked that she could keep a tally of all the men they hook up with during their time at university. But after a particularly disappointing freshers week, Molly had stuffed it at the back of wardrobe after wardrobe, burying her miniature failure at conforming to the norm of student life.

She unearthed it when she moved into her current flat. She sighed and realised it was a good little note book, leather bound and fairly compact without being overly small. She decided to ignore what it was meant to have recorded and that she would find a much more satisfactory use to it.

Maybe she could keep notes about the new guy at her work. She wasn't sure if she worked at St Barts or not, or if he was friends with Mike Stamford but he was definitely cute and he undoubtedly brightened up her dreary days in the morgue.

She came home the next week from work and wrote the first page.

Number of time I've stared at Sherlock Holmes

1

/M.H\

Now she flicked through the battered black book that sat in her bedside drawer, well over three quarters full of tallies on different pages.

Times I've stared at Sherlock 3,425

Times I've stuttered around Sherlock 2504

Times I've made a fool out of myself in front of Sherlock 3978

Times I like to think I've helped Sherlock 256

Times I probably haven't helped Sherlock 256

Times Sherlock's used me for morgue access and I know it 2425

Molly totted up the totals and smiled sadly, wiping the tears off her face. She almost contemplated writing a new section in the little book _Time I've helped Sherlock Holmes to die_ 1\. But she wasn't stupid enough to incriminate herself or Sherlock. This had to work perfectly.

Life had to go on as normal.

Which is why with Sherlock's recent suicide, she had opted to take two weeks off suddenly. It was holiday that Mike had signed off immediately, knowing Molly's fondness for Sherlock and he told her to come back when she was ready.

Slapping the little black book in the palm of her hand she kissed it suddenly and curled up atop her bed covers and cried. She cried for the Molly who never used the book the way Meena had planned, it cried for the hopeful Molly who first fell in love with Sherlock and she cried for the Molly she was now, knowing she was a pawn in a much larger game.


	2. Mary

A/N: Who knew you'd have to wait over a month for this!? Certainly not me, I cannot believe I was so lax! Sorry!

* * *

 **Mary's Little Black Book**

There were times when Mary Watson needed me time. She'd give John _that_ look and he'd pick up a bouncing Grace and the pair would usually disappear to feed the "duckies" in Hyde Park.

John knew that women needed their own time, and he knew Mary was no different from every other mother who balanced her work, her marriage and her child in one continuous juggling act and it was pleasure that he took Grace off to the park or to have a hot chocolate; he'd please his wife and his daughter in one hit.

But he didn't know what Mary did in the precious two hours he usually gave her; he thought she'd spend it slobbed out on the sofa watching some trashy tv show with a mad dash of a tidy in the last fifteen minutes but actually the reality was entirely different.

Mary would go to her wardrobe and press on a panel at the back, a panel she had built in when John was away on a case. But the alcove behind the panel held a special little secret. It held a battered black book, held together with tape, an elastic band and superglue. A black book that contained all of her aliases. When John had destroyed the memory stick, she had wanted to hand over the book as well but something in her gut stopped her. The book was _her_ , a diary she had made. Of sorts.

Molly had laughed at how long it took Mary to decide on a suitable name for her daughter, she rejected most names offered by John, Molly and Sherlock. It was all because of this book and the life she'd finally buried.

She picked up the book now and stared at the broken cover, stained with suspicious liquids it was probably a health hazard but she couldn't quite bear to part with her old life.

She stared at the same face but different hair styles and colours in each picture she'd tacked to each page. There were too many to count in reality but despite the dangers it would have posed, Mary had taken a photo of herself in the alias, whether it was with her mark that she carefully cut out of the photo or in a photo with innocent friends.

Charlotte. Louisa. Lyra. Katie. Caitlyn. Ana. Natasha. Kristina. Katerina. Zoe. Babs. Jenny. Edie. Victoria.

Each girl's name that she couldn't give her daughter because of the violence now associated with each word.

Sometimes she had to sit in her daughter's room, surrounded by the clothes and toys and the very presence of Grace with the book in her hands to compare the difference in her lives. Pre John Watson and Post John Watson.

He was her lynch pin; her hinge; the moment when her life changed for the better. She wanted to say she never looked back but she had. She had always looked back, just in case she had ever messed up and there was someone other than Magnussen on her tail, making detailed notes on her new life, her family. Preparing a plan for her weak spots and how to exploit them.

But now five years on, she thought they would have struck by now and with each day that passed, the need to hold the book passed, the need to call upon Charlotte, Zoe, Babs, Ana, Natasha passed and the tightness of her chest loosened a little. Mary Watson was less of a façade, a dream, a hope, a wish and more of a reality with each day.

The black book held whole worlds full of memories, painful ones, but they were gradually being replaced with new ones. So after she tucked the old book back into its nook, she would head to the study she shared with John and would pull down one of a growing number of volumes of new black journals. These pages held happier memories; some were fights with John but others held laughing memories, glued in photos of birthdays, Christmases, Sherlock and Molly's engagement. It was all there in the pages, blotting out the acrid, virulent thoughts in the book upstairs.


	3. Mrs Hudson

A/N: These are only meant to be short so Happy New Year!

* * *

 **Mrs Hudson's Little Black Book**

There's a little black book that sits on the top of Mrs Hudson's fridge. It's rather small, a diary from one of the big chain stores. Sherlock's never taken much notice of it to be honest. But it has a lot of use.

Every time she traipses down from 221b, Mrs Hudson reaches for the book and the pencil now bound to its side by an elastic band and she jots down a small tally mark on the appropriate day, which she finds with the small black ribbon.

With a tut or a sigh she marks the page and stows it back up on the top of the fridge. But if someone else was to open it, such as the visiting Molly Hooper or Mary Watson for example, when they're looking for the back door key they'd be confused at the mass of pencil lines scattered across the pages and the number in the corner of each Sunday.

Only Mrs Hudson knows that the number is the tally count up of the number of times she's had to run some errand for Sherlock. She was going to count the number of times that she'd found body parts in the fridge but that would mean remembering the awful sights that greet her. Instead her yearly diary became a record of the number of times she'd gone above and beyond the duty of being a landlady.

But as she totted up the week's total – sometimes as low as 4, when he was out on a big case, or 84 when there was a big case in London – Mrs Hudson couldn't help but smile fondly at the man living in 221b. She'd never had a son, but she was damned sure Sherlock was the closest thing she'd ever get.


	4. Moriarty

A/N: Damn three stories in one night! (Well two were before midnight but that's semantics!) Either way, I'm quite proud of myself.

My next installment of this collection. Enjoy!

* * *

 **Moriarty's Book**

You know he'd really stopped counting nowadays. Well that's what he'd told Moran. This was after the sniper had found reams of paper with a detailed list of kills on it.

Actually Seb had gone ballistic about it – leaving detailed evidence lying around. How stupid was James? He'd almost thrown an entire hissy fit but the clever sniper had learnt that James can throw bigger tantrums than Seb could ever dream of throwing.

Instead he had glared coldly at his boss and stalked out, picking his gun up on the way. Another hapless victim of Seb's rage would turn up in the Thames tomorrow.

But James had found it sexy to record the kills he had masterminded personally. Contracts he farmed out he didn't care so much for – nameless victims designed to get people's attention but murders he had personally overseen. Well what else are black journals for?!

It was all in code of course but Seb had been right; if Sherlock found them he'd crack the in no time, Mycroft even less time but the Holmes' boys never would clap eyes on the glorious library of black journals lining his library. Each was rigged with an explosive that would incinerate them if James needed to. Of course it would destroy the 16c oak panelling but safety first.

Occasionally he'd pull out a book and flick to a random page, revelling in the memories that would leap from the vellum page. Gabby Thwaites, Harry Albright, Leona Egerton, Mamrie Kinter, Iago Von Stroff, Andayo Parks, so many names that would flood back memory.

Oh he adored it! He could almost see the look on their faces if he'd killed them outright, though not usually, he hated getting blood on a suit. But that look in their eyes when they've drank the poisoned champagne or the fear when they're holding a hand grenade. It was a delicious thrill that sent shivers up his spine. Other journals, such as the ones bound in scarlet leather held the frauds he'd worked on, kidnapping was in the indigo coloured leather and the emerald documented memories, fragments during clientele meetings etc that had sprung to his mind at the time. Random thoughts really but it cleared them from his brain rather than leaving them there to fog and clutter his thoughts. The emerald coloured diaries had kept him lucid. He'd spin on his chair and look up at the coloured shelves with that smile he reserved for when he was pulling the trigger. It was satisfied.

The black books brought him the most satisfaction though their crisp clean pages and the neat documentation of death was a far cry from the usually bloody reality of it. But James was nothing but organised; he always had an escape route, someone to blame it on, a way to hide his clever murder. It was just another silk skein to his web, usually tied off rather neatly, so he'd step back and admire his work and the collection of books before him was a collection of skeins, intricacies of his web brought together in one place.


	5. Mycroft

A/N: It's been a while? I know and I am sorry. I realised I've done all the 'M' characters, Molly, Mycroft, Mrs Hudson, Moriarty, Mary... is that telling me something?

Enjoy!

* * *

"Anthea, it's going to be another long evening." Mycroft rubs a hand across his eyes as Anthea looks up from her desk and sighs.

"Another one, that's the third this month, and it's only the tenth…" She looked at the calendar, her own expression as tired as her boss'.

"Well it's not my fault that Germany is insisting on this treaty." Mycroft stood, stretching an aching back and skirted to the coffee pot, the contents of which was now somewhat cold and unattractive.

"Takeaway?" Anthea reached for her mobile at Mycroft's nod. "Thai or do you fancy Chinese?"

"Chinese I think is best for this evening. Do you think there's anyone left in the building that can scrounge together coffee?" Mycroft loosens his tie and dumps the expensive roll of fabric on his desk as Anthea places their customary order.

After about ten minutes of staring unhappily at the clock, the pair vanish out of the door in search of sustenance. Anthea detours downstairs to the basement of their building, crossing under next door to appear in an innocuous lobby of a nearby apartment building, which had become their usual delivery spot. The delivery boy smiled at her, flirted a little, commenting on the lateness in the evening which she easily rebuffed with getting home late because of her killer of a boss and soon enough she was traipsing back up the stairs with two hot bags of food in her hands.

Mycroft had cleared his desk of unnecessary paperwork, and had even managed to produce plates and cutlery. This may not sound like an achievement but as Anthea had been ordering in his lunches for the past three years and he had never set foot in the staff kitchen, it was a small shock to her system. Normally she brought the cutlery with her on the way back from collecting the takeaway but clearly Mycroft was feeling nice.

She walked in with the bags of food, to see him making a note in the slim black diary that usually sat in the breast pocket of his suit, which he hurriedly slipped out of sight as he made a beeline for the chicken chow mein and special fried rice cartons.

Tucking into the feast before them, the pair began the wearisome task of arguing out the treaty and the effect it would have on the Commonwealth as well as Europe. They both knew which countries would hate the dictating manner of the legal document and it was down to Mycroft to ease any tensions that would come from such a troublesome treaty.

"Treaty my arse." He would grumble around a forkful of rice, licking the hoisin sauce off his fingers before he made more notes across his copy of the papers.

It wasn't the first time he had come in to iron the creases out between supposedly allied countries; if he was brother was a consulting detective then Mycroft was a consulting peace negotiator.

~M.H~

As he shook hands with various ambassadors, all looking somewhat mollified at the outcome of the meeting, Anthea spied the tension vanishing from Mycroft's shoulders. While he still held himself the same, his pose as proud as always, Anthea saw the tell-tale signs of a relieved Mycroft – the smile reaching his eyes when he spotted her in the corner, the sweep of his fingers saw no tension at his knuckles, and the tone of his voice betrayed his happiness to his secretary.

But there would be one key moment, and although Anthea hadn't worked out the finer details of what the book held, if it was a successful meeting Mycroft would pull out the notebook from his breast pocket and make a small mark in its pages.

An action he duly did in the car on the way back to the airport. Anthea hid her smile as he appeared to draw one stroke on the pages and tucked it safely away once more.

When he would be at home alone, hanging his suit back up to prepare for bed, he would take the book out and look at the scores across the pages; alternating black and red tallies dotting across plain paper. He would frown if there were too many blacks in a row before a red would declare the international disaster averted. The blacks were meetings about crisis after crisis and his red would mark the end of each particular incident. His last few saw a neat pairing of black and red, proclaiming a neat finish to each global issue he had negotiated but a few pages back would see his "Moriarty era", where the blacks outnumbered his reds.

Mycroft didn't like to revisit those pages too often and tonight was no different. He left the book in the suit pocket and pulled the duvet around him in a bid to push away any black thoughts and memories that often resurfaced when it came to Moriarty. When he was a child, his mother had always taught him that a good duvet would keep any monsters away, a notion he had scoffed at as he quickly matured, but tonight the solid warmth of the covers acted as a barrier from the Moriarty demon that plagued him. That particular demon was forever entrapped on the pages of the book not ten feet away from him.

Hopefully that was where the scoundrel would stay.


	6. Anthea

A/N: Oh oh, **well** over a month since I last updated - I am incredibly sorry! But as a reconciliation present, I give you Anthea's little black book.

Enjoy!

* * *

 **Anthea's Book**

"Anthea?" The voice had changed from the sultry purr to a detached icy tone.

"Hmm?" She blinked and found herself not supine in Mycroft extensive bed but resting in the back of his Mercedes.

"Did you fall asleep? We're at Burghley. Is my briefcase back there with you?" Mycroft had opted to drive himself to Burghley House – while the clientele of this event were indeed filthy rich, it was considered gauche and bad taste to have personal security while at the equestrian event.

"Are we there already?" Anthea cheeped, pulling a mirror out of her handbag and checking her mass of brown waves for the usual 'hair fairy' knot she got when she slept.

"We're about a mile out." Mycroft spied her in his rear view mirror as she nervously brushed through her mane and skilfully applied her neutral lipstick. "You'll fit in." He stated shortly as she continued to fuss.

They both knew why she was nervous. They both knew that the real Anthea had no place at Burghley Horse Trials. Well, maybe as wait staff or a groom. At Mycroft's declaration her hands stilled and she sighed. Neither of them were exactly rich enough for Burghley – they were not of old money. The Holmes' parents were not well off, they were just about comfortable for their dotage years. Anthea's parents were doing time as far as she knew…after Mycroft had plucked her skinny brawling butt off the street and fine-tuned her to a glamourous government life.

Careful not to crease the expensive lilac fabric of her dress, Anthea climbed through the front seat of the merc. She reached back for her shoes and clutch and smiled at her bosses frown. As they entered through the wrought iron gates and Mycroft leant out of the window to talk quietly to the steward waiting, Anthea withdrew a small black jotting book from her clutch bag. Flicking open a page, she tallied a mark and Mycroft caught her slipping it back into the matching silky bag. A his quizzing look, she raised one eyebrow dismissively – a look he had taught her and she had perfected – before checking her lipstick in the car mirror.

~A~

"Anth, wake up." The voice was gruff and she managed to pull herself too as the smell of coffee assaulted her sense of smell.

"Wazzgoinon.? She grunted, realising with a grimace that there was paper now stuck to her face and that she was in fact half asleep on her desk.

"The Japanese delegates touch down in less than 24 hours and we have no reason as to why we there are supposedly rogue agents in a delicate location in their territories." Mycroft sat down, his words seemed harsh but Anthea saw his stress. "I don't want to lose these agents, they're far too valuable." Although he sounded alert, she knew enough about the Iceman to recognise the exhaustion tinging his voice.

Anthea then regretfully stowed away thoughts of leaving hickey's down her boss's chest and swung her mind to some serious negotiation. She had to think of anything but making the Iceman melt. Instead the testament to her latest libido fuelled dream was another score in her black book – a quick tally of the most recent page saw her fantasies equal 184 and it wasn't even May yet!

~A~

This wasn't good.

Anthea knew she was glaze eyed at the printer but the Treat draft was nearly 500 pages long and she was going to day dream.

As usual Mycroft took the centre stage in her dreams. He was pressing himself behind her, into her his hands dancing across her body fumbling for a button on her blouse so his touch could slip beneath the silky fabric. Anthea was hugely concerned that her head was actually tipping back against his non-existent shoulder as one finger traced the edge of her bra cup before starting to sneak beneath.

Only as his touch reached to circle her nipple the printer let out the most hideous of shrieking noises and Anthea was pulled back to the mundane and entirely sex free office with a very large bang. As well as maybe some shredding noises.

Cursing in a variety of languages, she glared down at the outdated machine that was churning out chewed up paper. You'd think with the advances in technology printer companies would update printers that just plugged in. Mycroft in a fit of paranoia had only insisted on a frankly archaic machine that was still connected by a wire! Fine no wireless, Anthea accepted that, even though every server the pair of them used was so secure even Sherlock couldn't break in, and he had tried (not that he'd admit it). But thanks to Mycroft's pique of technology phobia, Anthea could not pull apart a printer and put it back together again – which was a skill she found was largely useless. Knowing she was halfway through printing the stupendously-long-would-not-be-read-by-anyone-will-end-up-in-a-cupboard treaty and that the machine would start all over again once she fixed the jam, Anthea pulled the black jotter from her blazer pocket, opened the marked page, tallied another filthy day dream to her book and stared at the dratted machine with fury in her eyes.

Twenty minutes later she would storm back into their _shared_ office, level Mycroft's smug smile, rant about the printer only to be with.

"Six months with that luddite machine, you outlasted both mine and Sherlock's bets, you have impressed me Anthea." At which point she'd hurl her ornamental letter opener at his arrogant face, storm out of the room, unplug the infernal machine, dump it on his desk (leaving countless marks on the mahogany wood) and storm out of the building, gesturing to Mycroft's personal chauffeur that she was leaving. She was now smug in the satisfaction she had ruined his day but realised that she would go home and despair at her fascination with the condescending twat.


	7. Sally

A/N: Okay this is a slight deviation - not quite a black book BUT close enough! And aha almost a year since I uploaded to this! Well with another season of Sherlock I get brainwaves!

* * *

Sally Donavon knew she was a dirty little secret. At first that was all part of the fun – it was exciting to do something naughty and entirely forbidden; to have that black dot on the calendar at home when she and Anderson planned a naughty night together.

It was a small innocuous black dot in the corner of each date but it sent a thrill to her core when she caught sight of it. On the last day of each month she'd count up the number of black dots and gladly noted the increase on a monthly basis. But that had been six months ago and now she was just Philip's dirty secret and as she walked into her flat she sighed. Trudging through the rooms, she scattered her bag and her coat on the floor and grabbed the black felt tip from its place on the side. Gearing herself up, she added another black mark to her calendar and groaned out loud.

She huffed; she smelt of stale sex and her back hurt from where Phil had pushed her against the shelves in the stationery cupboard. Arching forwards she felt the satisfying clicks down her spine but it was swiftly followed by the unsatisfying feeling in her gut. Her eyes scanned the calendar and she sighed again – they were two weeks into the month and she had just added the sixth black dot for June.

Resting her head against the wall she let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob and soon found herself sliding down the wall while crying noiselessly.

Those black dots had once denoted passionate fun, but now they stuck out as stark reminders of her worthlessness.

"Fuck this." She said sourly, wiping away her tears and glaring at the calendar above her head. She decided to text Polly – Polly was one of the desk sergeants and a good friend of Sally's. A friend who knew about the affair with Anderson and had often told Sally she was too good for him. A friend that would happily accompany her on a night out – Sally needed a man that would be proud to say he was with her and she wanted someone she could flaunt, not fuck in a cupboard in the police station.

Then maybe her shameful tally would diminish.


	8. Sebastian

A/N: Okay this is infinitely shorter than the rest in this series but that's because Seb is such a mystery. I'll wholly admit I hated the Sebastian Moran in the TV series, and I pined for the Seb from the film. So this is my take on him. Enjoy!

* * *

There had only been one. Seb growled at the black book in his hands. One kill that he hadn't seen through. One time he couldn't pull the trigger and even now, ten years later Seb couldn't explain why.

Her scared look was burnt into his brain, her please for mercy seared into his soul. The fifteen year old that had rebuffed a job offer from Jim. She was an entirely innocent teenager that had turned down an admin role because she was too young. Jim, in a fit of rage had ordered her hit but Seb just couldn't pull the trigger.

James didn't know Seb had allowed the girl to run free; thankfully a rather lucrative client had cropped up the next day and the insignificant teen had been forgotten. Not by Seb though. The fifteen year was a ghost. Though he laughed at the irony – he was haunted by the living, not by the dead.

He had no idea where she was. He could find her quite easily, James network was extensive and Seb knew it'd only take a minute maximum to root her out but Seb also knew that Jim would discover his query, and then Jim would remember. Putting Charlotte Gilbert at danger was not an option.

Oh he knew her name. Turning a black book over in his hands Seb let out another bark of humourless laughter – the exercise book of a school girl was his life line. He knew every line in the school note book. The class notes, the doodles, the stories penned on pages reserved for lessons. He knew them all.

Tucking it back into his briefcase, Seb straightened his tie with a grimace. He hated this particular gig; he wasn't made to be a businessman but a kill was a kill. He stroked the book once more and sighed at his dependency on the little black book.

There had only been one kill he could never make and Charlotte Gilbert was now immortalised in the pages as she lived elsewhere.

While she **lived**.


	9. Irene

AN: It's another little short one for this collection, and again a little bit different!

Enjoy this snapshot of Irene.

* * *

Those photos that brought Sherlock Holmes into her life were not the first. Of course they were not the first, Irene's ego was far too great and despite her phone being her life, the memory capacity was far too small. It also hadn't been around long enough to cover her extensive, lucrative history.

There was a house, under an alias she had only ever used for the purchase of this house. It was a small house in a city. It was innocuous and didn't suit her character at all. It was a suburban home that said nothing of the opulence of its owner. But that's why Irene had loved it. It was something Sherlock would never have guessed, and that not even Mycroft could have traced.

It held her secrets, more than her phone did.

If you walked into the hallway, turned left into the lounge you would be greeted with photo albums. Black bound albums that held Irene's favourite memories. She had converted one of the bedrooms into a darkroom and from her earliest days as a dominatrix she had produced the photographs that now lay in the albums.

Famous and non-famous faces sat side by side in the clean white pages, faces she'd stroke long fingers over, reminiscing in the memories of trailing her touch down their willing bodies. You would find Vice-Admirals alongside the common man, Royal Equerries next to doctors and members of many royal families rested beside plain businessmen with expensive taste. She had a whole album dedicated to Kate but that was a pleasurable memory box to dip in and out of in an entirely different way.

Occasionally, Irene would drive herself to Essex and slip into the plain little house just to revel in the albums. More often than not, she would find a set of negatives and decide to slip into her dark room for the afternoon. She didn't have to be The Woman here, which was a persona she really did enjoy, but she could go back to being the mousey 14 year old photography student, who enjoyed developing her many rolls of expensive film.

She'd sit there on a sofa and just stare up at the neatly bound albums. Her scheme with James Moriarty nearly cost her everything, everything but this small house in Essex filled with beautiful, powerful memories. So now she hunkered down in the house and waited as the Holmes' brothers decided her future.

It was a bittersweet moment.


	10. Greg

A/N: So this has been a long time coming, but this Greg Lestrade's Little Black Book

* * *

Greg would like to say he'd lost count of the number of times he'd stared down into the whiskey glass wondering if this was the end of the marriage but he hadn't. After the first attempt at divorce Greg learned to make a note of every time they had a hiccup. In one of his battered police notebooks there was usually a date and a reason as to why they had fought. It ranged over the three years of 'marital issues', which usually meant who his wife was sleeping with this time, to she shouted at him for spending time with Sally… entirely ignoring that was his colleague and that she was banging Anderson.

Feeling tired of just about everything Lestrade had dumped his sorry arse in a grotty pub on the outskirts of London and stared balefully down at the cheap whisky. Digging in his coat pocket he found the book and flicked through the contents.

9th of September, Lorraine home late from yoga class.

18th September, Lorraine home after midnight from yoga class smelling of aftershave.

21st September, blazing row with Lorraine over yoga classes, slept on sofa.

1st October, Lorraine moved out to stay with 'friend' to help ease tensions.

5th October, Lorraine moved back in tearfully.

Occasionally his wife seemed to forget she was married to a policeman. It gave him a lot of opportunities to sort of abuse his power and look into who her classes were run by – the pottery class, the aerobics class, yoga, spinning, painting, reading clubs, salsa dancing. Greg had seen all of the instructors and they fitted the same profile – chiselled good looks, abs you could bounce coins off, beards, all below the age of 28. His 49 year old wife was a cougar in a mid-life crisis. If the Audi TT was anything to go by, she was hitting mid-life crisis at 90mph and free-wheeling her way through it. If she had been male it would have been seen as lewd or moronic but her female status meant it was almost ignored and the hen-pecked husband remained bound to his police desk.

"Hey sweetheart." A throaty female voice had him looking up, he had deliberately chosen a pub that any clever woman would avoid. Staring at the brunette in front of him he sighed.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm buying." She grinned, taking the bar stool next to him.

"I'm not drinking." He tipped his still full glass towards her.

"Not that crap you're not." She wrinkled her nose in distaste. "I say I am, my friend is. Come and join us?" She indicated to a private room off the side of the bar.

"Look love, I'm a copper. I'm a tired copper who is giving you a chance to fleece someone else in a different pub." Greg rubbed his stubbled chin with one hand still swirling the contents of the glass with the other.

"Look darling, I'm a PA. I'm a tired PA that has been sent over by her boss to collect you so he can get you home safely. No-one else puts up with Sherlock like you do and my boss wants to make sure you're safe." The brunette huffed and Greg groaned out loud.

"Bloody Mycroft." He grunted quietly. "Couldn't have just paid the cabby off like normal could he?"

"You know he does that?" She asked surprised.

"Like I said, I'm a copper. Sherlock might make me look quite thick but I'm surprisingly not." Lestrade sighed and stretched his back out before standing. "Come on then, lets go and see what he wants." Lestrade snapped the black book shut and stuffed it back into his pocket again, making a mental reminder to make an addition.

7th March, caught Lorraine shagging the gardener in the shed.


End file.
